By looking at the films of Jia Zhangke (b. 1970) and the artwork of Yang Yongliang (b. 1980), this presentation examines how the ruins in these films and artworks not only reflect the effects of China’s fast-paced modernisation, but also symbolise the destruction of the past Maoist society, and analyses the ways they affectively probe the changing relationship between the environment and the people who inhabit it during this period of rapid change.